Saving Dr Cooper

Disbelief shot through him and the monitor blipped as his heart rate increased. He saw Heather Cooper’s eyes swivel towards the screen and willed himself to calm down. The last thing he wanted was for her to suspect that something was wrong with him, but it was hard to deal with the way he seemed to be behaving all of a sudden.

Since when had he developed the gift of ESP? How on earth could he know that Heather was good at her job? He had no idea but it was worrying enough to cause his heart to fit in several more beats in rapid succession.

‘Do you have any chest pain at all?’

Dr Cooper’s calm voice should have been the perfect antidote to his fanciful musings but Ross was past the point of no return by that stage. Blip, blip, blip went the damned machine as he shook his head, seemingly intent on making a liar of him.

‘Are you quite sure, Mr Tanner?’

Those cool fingers returned to hold the chilly end of a stethoscope against his chest. Ross sucked in as much oxygen as his burning lungs would allow but the blasted machine rattled out another volley of blips. Heaven help him if Heather Cooper worked out that the reason why his heart was hopping up and down like a kid on a pogo stick was because she was touching him!

‘Relax, Mr Tanner. I know how worrying this must be for you but I’m confident that you’ve suffered only minimal damage to your throat and lungs….’

She stopped talking while she listened, lightly holding the end of the stethoscope against his chest with the tips of her fingers. Ross focused on the pale ovals of her nails because that seemed a relatively harmless thing to do. Fingernails weren’t the least bit scary. Neither were they sexy, although Heather Cooper’s nails were particularly beautiful with those delicate half-moons at the base of each shimmering through the unvarnished shell-pink.

Ross saw her stiffen as his heart gave an almighty surge. He closed his eyes, praying that nobody would notice the matching response that had occurred in another part of his body. Thankfully, the nurse had only removed his shirt and he was still wearing his uniform trousers beneath the sheet. With a bit of luck they would save him from any major embarrassment.

‘We’ll monitor what’s happening overnight.’

Ross’s eyes flew open when he realised that Heather Cooper was speaking to him. She was calmly rolling up her stethoscope but there was a hint of colour in her cheeks that hadn’t been apparent before. His gaze dipped down then swooped back up in relief when he realised that the bulky trousers had safely preserved his modesty. If Dr Cooper was looking a little hot under the collar then it had nothing to do with him.

‘I’m glad I asked you for a second opinion, Heather.’

Ross’s eyes swivelled to the young man standing beside Heather Cooper and he felt a sudden stab of irritation. The fellow was gazing at her like a lovesick puppy! Didn’t he understand that a mature and intelligent woman like Heather wouldn’t be swayed by a good-looking face, that she needed a man of her own age and experience to satisfy her needs? A woman of Heather’s calibre wouldn’t look twice at someone several years her junior.

Would she?

Ross’s stomach sank when it struck him that he was making an awful lot of assumptions he wasn’t qualified to make. How could he say what Heather Cooper needed? Maybe that blush on her face was a direct result of working side by side with the handsome younger doctor? Maybe the pair were already involved in a relationship and being able to work together added an extra buzz?

He’d watched enough hospital dramas on television while he’d been working night shifts to know there must be some basis for portraying hospitals as hotbeds of romance. Maybe the beautiful Dr Cooper and the handsome Dr Carlisle were starring in their very own series. Love in the Accident and Emergency Unit.

Hell’s teeth!

‘It’s always safer to get a second opinion in a case like this, Ben.’

Heather smiled at the young registrar, praying that he couldn’t tell how on edge she felt. Was it her imagination or had the tension level suddenly upped several degrees?

She glanced at Abby McLeod, the sister in charge of the A and E unit that shift, and was relieved to receive a calm smile in return. Abby obviously hadn’t noticed anything amiss so it must be her imagination. Time to knock this on the head. Once Ross Tanner was off their hands then she could get back to normal.

Hopefully…

Heather blanked out that last thought by dint of sheer will-power. She turned to Ross Tanner again, finding it less stressful to focus strictly on professional matters. Tanner was a patient and it was her job to treat him as such.

‘I can find no indication of there being anything wrong with your heart, Mr Tanner, but, as I said, I shall recommend that you be kept on a monitor overnight.’ She shrugged. ‘We would have kept you in until we were sure that your lungs were clear so it’s simply a matter of attaching you to a bit more machinery.’

‘I had a medical last week and my heart and everything else that matters were fine.’

Ross Tanner had eased the mask away from his mouth. Heather just managed to suppress a shiver when she heard his voice for the first time. Although the swelling in his throat would have caused some changes to its tone, she guessed that he normally had a wonderfully deep voice. She was overcome by a sudden desire to hear how it sounded once he’d recovered before she briskly dismissed the idea. Once Ross Tanner left Resus that would be the last she saw of him.

‘That’s good to hear, Mr Tanner.’ It was hard to ignore how disquieting she found that idea but Heather had become an expert at controlling her feelings. ‘I know how rigorous the fire brigade’s medical examinations are and can only repeat that I don’t believe there is a problem with your heart. It’s purely a precaution, you understand.’

‘The old belt and braces approach?’ Ross Tanner grinned at her, his teeth gleaming whitely through his smoke-blackened skin, his hazel eyes sparkling with amusement. ‘Well, I certainly can’t argue with that approach, Dr Cooper. If there’s one thing the brigade teaches you, it’s always to try and minimise any risks.’

‘I would have thought that was impossible in your job,’ she said tartly, praying that he couldn’t tell how mixed up she was feeling. Why on earth had her heart started racing because Tanner had smiled at her? What could it mean?

‘Surely every time you attend a fire you’re putting yourself at risk? The unexpected can always happen and nobody—nobody—can guarantee that it won’t!’

Heather only realised that she’d raised her voice when she saw the startled expressions on everyone’s faces. She took a deep breath but it was hard to pretend nothing was wrong and pointless, too, when everyone could tell just by looking at her that she was upset.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

Ross Tanner reached over and touched her hand, just lightly, but it was still too much. Her emotions were too raw at that moment to withstand anyone’s sympathy and especially not his. Heather jerked her hand away and turned from the bed, ignoring Ben’s look of concern as she brushed past him.

‘Phone the bed manager and tell him that we have a patient who needs admitting, please. I’m taking my break now but page me if anything urgent crops up.’

She didn’t wait to hear what Ben said in reply. She strode to the door but was forced to stop when Melanie and a porter came back with the trolley they’d used to take Damien to the burns unit. Heather waited while they wheeled it into the room then hurried out of the door, cursing under her breath when the hem of her white coat snagged on a rough splinter of wood.

She stopped to disentangle herself, automatically glancing round and shaking her head when Melanie offered to help. Through the gap in the doors she could see Ross Tanner watching her and her heart felt as though it was going to burst right out of her chest when she saw the compassion in his eyes. He knew that comment she’d made about the unexpected happening had been based on experience. He had recognised her pain and empathised with it. He wanted to help her.

The idea terrified her. The last thing Heather wanted was to talk about what had happened to Stewart. She couldn’t deal with the heartache it would unleash all over again. She needed to keep this pain safely locked away inside her. Opening her heart to Ross Tanner wasn’t an option.

‘Hey! I thought those were supposed to be for me?’

Ross upended the paper bag and sighed when a solitary grape dropped onto the bed. ‘Thanks, guys—I don’t think!’

‘Blame Jack. He said there was no point giving you grapes because you wouldn’t be able to swallow them with your throat. He said he might as well save you a job.’ Terry Green grinned as he drew up a chair and sat down, but Ross could see the troubled light in the older man’s eyes.

It was way past evening visiting hours but the crew from Red Watch had managed to persuade the ward sister to let them in to see him. Fortunately, Ross had been put in a side room off the main ward and the only other occupant—an elderly man—was watching television in the lounge. At least he didn’t need to feel guilty about disturbing anyone. He seemed to have caused enough upset for one day.

He forced himself to concentrate on what Terry was saying, but the pain he’d glimpsed in Heather Cooper’s eyes had haunted him. There was no doubt in his mind that something dreadful had happened to Heather in the past and he resolved to find out all he could about it, although why he should be so interested was beyond him. However, if there was one thing Ross had learned to do it was to trust his instincts, and his instincts were telling him that this mattered. A lot.

‘I had no idea you’d turned back. One minute you were right behind me and the next time I looked you’d disappeared.’ Terry shook his head in dismay. He was obviously having a hard time dealing with what had gone on earlier that day.

‘I said that you needed your hearing testing,’ Jack Marsh—another of the crew—chipped in. ‘You have the telly turned up that loud in the break room that you have to be going deaf, and this just proves it!’

‘It was my fault,’ Ross cut in before a squabble could break out. Tensions always ran high after a member of the team was injured and he didn’t want to be the cause of an argument. ‘I was following you out, Terry, when I glimpsed something out of the corner of my eye and went to check it out. I should have told you what I was doing but there wasn’t time.’

‘Damn good job you did—check it out, I mean.’ Jack popped the last grape into his mouth and chewed it. ‘Another minute and the kid would have had it. The cupboard where you found him, Ross, ended up in the basement.’

There was a moment’s silence as they all reflected on how close the child had come to being killed that day. Most of the men at Hexton fire station had children of their own and it was easy for them to imagine how they would have felt.

At thirty-six, Ross still hadn’t found the right woman to settle down with and start a family, although he certainly hadn’t ruled out the chance of it happening. He loved kids and adored his sister’s twin boys. However, he was realistic enough to know that a woman who committed herself to a man who did the kind of job he did would have to be very special. Living with the risks involved was something he had long since accepted, but he’d seen too many relationships break up during his time with the brigade not to realise the toll it took. Would Heather Cooper be able to handle it?

He coughed as the question caught him unawares. Although his throat was feeling a little easier, his lungs were still very sensitive. He accepted the oxygen mask Terry handed him, relieved that his expression was concealed by the opaque plastic.

What would the guys say if they discovered he was having thoughts like that about a woman he’d met just a few hours ago? They’d probably think the smoke had affected his reasoning and maybe they’d be right, too. Heather Cooper wasn’t interested in him, as she had made abundantly clear.

That thought was a little too close to the truth not to cause him some discomfort. As Ross drew in a few more breaths of oxygen his mind raced back over what had happened in the Resus room. Did Heather really have something going with that junior doctor?

He tried to recall their body language even though he could scarcely believe he was doing anything so pathetic. He had a book full of phone numbers back at his flat, most of them belonging to women who were every bit as beautiful and desirable as Heather Cooper was. And yet when was the last time that he’d called any of them?

It was alarming to realise that it must be a good six months since he’d been out on a date and that he couldn’t for the life of him remember who with, let alone where they had gone. Yet here he was, lying in a hospital bed and trying to remember exactly how Heather Cooper had looked at another man.

Ross swallowed his groan of dismay but now that he’d set off down this route it was impossible to stop. Heather’s beautiful face swam before his eyes, that cool little smile curling her generous mouth. It hadn’t appeared to warm up by even half a degree when she’d looked at her junior colleague, but maybe she preferred to be discreet about their relationship?

The fire brigade certainly frowned on liaisons between the sexes and took immediate steps to transfer the people involved to different stations. Maybe Heather was afraid that young Dr Carlisle might be given his marching orders if their affair became public knowledge so preferred to keep things low-key?

Ross sighed as he realised that he might very well be right, although Heather hadn’t given the impression of a woman enjoying a heady love affair when she’d left Resus. His heart ached as he recalled the suffering on her face. It made him wonder once again what kind of a tragedy had befallen her in the past and what he could do to help her get over it.

He sucked in another lungful of air but the facts had to be faced. Why should he imagine that Heather Cooper needed his help?

‘And the little puppy snuggled up in his basket and fell fast asleep.’

Heather closed the book and quietly placed it on the bedside cabinet. Standing up, she tucked the quilt around her small daughter, feeling a wave of love wash over her as she looked at the sleeping child.

Grace had just turned two and each day she grew more like Stewart to look at. She had Stewart’s mop of dark brown curls, the same deep blue eyes and wonderful smile. Grace was living proof of their love for one another, the child they had both longed for. How proud Stewart would have been of his tiny daughter.

Tears stung Heather’s eyes and she quickly blinked them away as she bent to turn off the lamp. She hadn’t allowed herself to cry since Grace had been born and she had no intention of breaking her rule now. She didn’t want Grace to grow up surrounded by sadness. Far better to keep her emotions in check rather than let them affect her precious daughter, even though today it was proving unusually difficult. Had it anything to do with meeting Ross Tanner, perhaps?

‘Supper’s ready, Heather.’

Heather jumped as her mother, Sandra, popped her head round the bedroom door. She tried to dismiss the idea as she followed the older woman to the kitchen but the thought that Ross Tanner might have had an effect on how she had behaved alarmed her. She didn’t even know the man so how could he be responsible for her loss of self-control?

‘It’s only shepherd’s pie, I’m afraid. I didn’t get a chance to go to the supermarket.’

‘It’s fine, Mum.’ Heather sat at the table and took the plate Sandra handed her with a grateful smile. ‘I’m only glad that I don’t have to set to and start making a meal for myself when I get home from work. You spoil me, you know that, don’t you?’

‘If I can’t spoil my own daughter then who can I spoil?’ Sandra said lightly, taking her own seat.

‘Your granddaughter?’ Heather laughed when her mother grimaced. ‘Grace told me that you’d taken her to see the ducks after nursery school. And then she did just happen to mention something about going on the swings as well.’

‘I enjoy playing with her. Anyway, the playground is on our way home and you meet a lot of nice people there, too.’

Heather frowned when she saw a little colour run up her mother’s cheeks. If she wasn’t mistaken, Sandra was blushing. She put down her knife and fork and stared at her.

‘These nice people you meet—is there anyone in particular you’re referring to?’

‘Well, yes, actually.’ Sandra stared at her plate for a moment then seemed to make up her mind. ‘There’s this very nice man who I’ve met at the playground a number of times. He’s a widower and he has a little grandson. He…well, he asked me if I’d like to go out for a drink with him one night.’

‘Did he indeed? And what did you say?’ Heather hid her surprise because it was the first time that her mother had shown any interest in socialising since she’d moved to London to help her look after Grace.

Heather’s parents had divorced when she’d been in her teens and her father had remarried shortly afterwards and moved to California with his new wife. Apart from a yearly Christmas card, Heather had very little contact with him.

Her mother had never remarried although she’d had a wide circle of friends of both sexes back home in Manchester. It suddenly struck Heather how much Sandra had given up when she’d moved to London, and how lonely she must have been without her friends. How selfish of her not to have thought about that before.

‘I hope you said yes, Mum.’ She reached over the table and squeezed Sandra’s hand. ‘It’s about time you went out and had some fun!’

‘So you think it’s all right for me to accept, then?’ Sandra sounded worried. ‘I told David—that’s his name, David Harper—that I would need to think about it first, you see.’

‘What on earth is there to think about?’ Heather regarded her mother sternly. ‘Tell him that you’ll go, Mum. That’s an order!’

‘All right, I will.’ Sandra squared her shoulders then looked steadily at Heather. ‘But what you just said, about it being time I had some fun, applies to you, too, darling. Stewart wouldn’t want you to grieve for ever. He’d want you to get on with your life and make the most of it.’

‘That’s exactly what I’m doing.’ Heather picked up her fork. She swallowed a mouthful of mashed potato but it tasted like sawdust all of a sudden.

‘There’s more to life than working and looking after Grace,’ Sandra said quietly, then changed the subject to what Grace had done after they had arrived home that afternoon.

Heather made appropriate responses but she couldn’t seem to give her small daughter’s antics her undivided attention as she usually did. Was her mother right? Was it time that she looked for more out of life than just her work and caring for Grace?

Her mind veered off towards what that more might entail and she felt her heart spasm in panic. She wouldn’t risk falling in love again! Even if she found a man who could match Stewart in her estimation—which was highly unlikely—she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t face the heartache if anything happened to him, too. What she’d said to that fireman today about the unexpected happening had been true. He, more than anyone, must know that.

In Ross Tanner’s world life and death were too closely linked to be discounted. It made her wonder how any woman could bear to fall in love with a man who put himself in constant danger like that. How did a woman cope with the thought that the man she loved might not come home one day? She certainly couldn’t, which made it all the more imperative that she steer clear of Tanner.

The thought brought her up short. She wouldn’t see Ross Tanner again so what was she worrying about? They had fleetingly crossed paths that day and that was the end of the matter.

Heather shivered as the cool finger of premonition suddenly slid down her spine. Or had it been merely the beginning and not the end?

‘Thanks, Jane. I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me.’

Ross kissed the ward sister’s cheek. It was Monday morning and, after a lot of persuasion on his behalf, he’d finally been discharged. The consultant had been inclined to keep him in another day but in the end he’d relented after Ross had promised to come straight back if he experienced any problems. To his mind, it was a lot of fuss about nothing, but he did appreciate the excellent care he’d received.

He left the ward and headed for the lift. He knew that he could have asked any one of the crew from Red Watch to collect him but he’d decided to take a taxi back to his flat. Maybe he was making a big mistake but there was something he needed to do before he left.

Sign boards directed him to the accident and emergency unit when he reached the ground floor so he had no difficulty finding his way. The waiting area was packed with people and Ross hesitated. Maybe this wasn’t a good time to talk to Heather when she was so busy.

The thought had barely crossed his mind when he spotted her leaving a cubicle and, without pausing to reconsider, he hurried after her. ‘Heather!’

It seemed the most natural thing in the world to call out her first name, natural and right. Dr Cooper was too formal, Ms Cooper impolite, so how else would he address her? And yet Ross wasn’t prepared for the way it made him feel as her name rolled off his tongue. Heather.

He repeated it in his head and felt the heat that flowed through him as he savoured it once more. In that moment Ross knew that it might have been the first time he’d said it but it wouldn’t be the last. Definitely not!

He saw her turn, saw the alarm that lit her soft grey eyes when she recognised him, and knew that it wasn’t going to be easy to convince her of that. Given an inch, Heather was going to run a mile in the opposite direction both physically and metaphorically speaking. He had to find a way to stop her, had to make her run towards him instead of away. Only then could either of them be truly happy.

‘I’m busy.’

The clipped tone of her voice cut through his thoughts like a hot knife slicing through butter, and he flinched. He wasn’t a man given to fanciful notions normally and it stunned him to find himself indulging in them now. However, he didn’t have the time to worry about it when he had more important matters to deal with, like making Heather listen to him for starters. From the look on her face, listening to anything he had to say was about as attractive an idea as plunging her hand into a nest of vipers!

‘I realise that so I won’t detain you. I just wanted to thank you for what you did the other day, Heather. For me and the kid. I believe he’s on the mend.’

‘Yes, so I believe.’

Her expression softened so that Ross had a glimpse of the real woman beneath the ice-cool exterior. He sent up a silent vote of thanks that he was no longer attached to any monitors when he felt his heart kick up a storm. Did she have any idea how drop-dead gorgeous she was? he wondered giddily.

He cleared his throat but he could hear how rough his voice sounded even if Heather seemed blissfully unaware of the strain he was under. Keeping his hands by his sides and well away from her took an awful lot of will-power.

‘You did a great job on him, and on me, too. I just wanted to find a way to thank you properly and wondered if you’d consider having dinner with me one night.’

Ross was almost as shocked as Heather so obviously was when the invitation sprang from his lips. He certainly hadn’t planned on asking her out and would have set about it with a bit more finesse if he had. He saw her face close up and cursed his wayward tongue because it had just cost him an awful lot of ground he might never be able to make up.

‘Thank you, but that isn’t necessary, Mr Tanner. I was only doing my job. Now, if you’ll excuse me.’

She didn’t wait for him to reply before she hurried away. Ross didn’t try to stop her because there was no point. He had wasted the one and only opportunity he was likely to get and that was it. Finito.